Inspiring ‘I’ll Ride With You’ Anti-Terrorism Campaign Took Over Twitter This Week

The recent hostage crisis in Sydney in which gunmen took 17 people hostage in a cafe gripped the world last week. Heavily armed officers stormed the scene, blocking off streets around the cafe and worked on negotiations before the gunman was shot and the hostages were freed. The terrifying situation stunned Australian citizens, but in the aftermath of the terror came a social media movement that proved Aussies would not succumb to fear or hate.

The crisis could have easily left Australia’s Islamic citizens in fear of retribution after the hostage-taker displayed an Islamic flag in the cafe’s window, but instead the Twitter hashtag #IllRideWithYou happened. The hashtag was meant to ease anxieties of Australian Muslims who might fear using public transportation, and came about after TV reporter Michael James sent out the below tweet.

Sydney writer Tessa Kum, saw the tweet and offered to ride with any Muslims who were feeling uneasy about wearing their religious attire aboard the 337 bus. From there #IllRideWithYou caught on and by the end of the day had been re-tweeted an astonishing 150,000 times!

What’s so amazing about this campaign, is that it takes the fear that a madman caused and spins it into an act of compassion. Australians didn’t allow the hate of one person to infect their community, but instead turned it around and showed their neighbors that they need not be afraid. It also serves as a lesson to the rest of the world, not to let hate spread hate and fuel fear, but to fight it with love and understanding. A pretty amazing win for social media and humanity.